Redirect Chain Checker
A redirect checker follows a URL through every 301/302 hop it makes and reports the exact chain, instead of just showing you the final destination like a browser does. Enter any URL to trace its full redirect chain — every hop, status code and destination — up to 15 redirects deep, with loop detection.
1 Enter a URL
Checking redirects requires a server-side request — the target site sees Frost Rank's server, not your IP. Nothing checked is stored or logged.
2 Redirect chain
Why redirect chains are worth checking
A redirect works fine in a browser even when it's doing something search engines handle poorly — three hops through old domains, a permanent move sent as a temporary 302, or a chain that loops back on itself. None of that is visible just by clicking the link; you have to look at the actual HTTP responses, one hop at a time, to see it.
This matters most after a site migration, a URL structure change, or years of accumulated "just redirect it for now" fixes. A single extra hop is rarely a problem, but chains that have grown to four or five redirects — often through a URL nobody remembers exists anymore — are worth finding and shortening directly to the final destination. Crawl-blocking mistakes and redirect mistakes often travel together — the Robots.txt / Sitemap Validator covers the other common cause of a page quietly disappearing from search results.
For example, a chain might look like:
http://example.com → 301 → https://example.com → 301 → https://www.example.com → 200 OKTwo redirects to reach the final page — a reasonable candidate for pointing the original URL directly at the destination instead.
How to use this tool
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1
Enter a URL
Paste the address you want to test. If you leave out http:// or https://, the tool starts with https://.
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2
Run the check
Click "Check redirects". The request is made from our server and follows each redirect in turn, up to 15 hops.
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3
Read the chain
Each hop shows its status code and the address it points to, ending at the final destination or the error that stopped it.
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4
Look for problems
Watch for more than one hop, temporary 302 or 307 redirects where the move is permanent, loops, and chains that end in an error.
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5
Copy the chain
Click "Copy chain" to paste the result into a ticket or send it to whoever manages the redirects.
Common use cases
- Verifying redirects after a site migration, domain change or move to HTTPS.
- Confirming that the http, https, www and non-www versions of a site all reach one canonical address in a single hop.
- Checking that old backlinks and campaign URLs still land on a live page.
- Investigating "Page with redirect" or "Redirect error" reports in Search Console.
- Seeing where a shortened or tracking link really ends up before you visit it.
Tips and common mistakes
- Fix links at the source. Internal links, canonical tags and sitemaps should point straight at the final URL instead of relying on a redirect.
- Point new redirects at the destination. Redirecting to a URL that already redirects is how chains grow, one "quick fix" at a time.
- Match each old URL to its closest page. Google often treats a redirect that sends everything to the homepage as a soft 404, so the old page's value is lost.
- Check what the final page sends. Once you know the destination, run it through the HTTP Header Checker to confirm it returns 200 without a noindex header. The 301 vs 302 redirects guide explains which status code to use when.
Frequently asked questions
A 301 means "permanently moved" — search engines transfer ranking signals to the new URL and update their index to point at it. A 302 means "temporarily moved" — the old URL is expected to come back, so engines are more likely to keep indexing the original. Using a 302 for a permanent move is one of the most common redirect mistakes.
Each hop adds latency for both users and crawlers, and Google has said it will stop following a chain after a number of redirects rather than crawl indefinitely. A page reachable only through a long chain can end up crawled less often, or not at all.
A redirect loop happens when a chain eventually points back to a URL it already visited — A redirects to B, B redirects back to A. Browsers detect this and show an error like "too many redirects" instead of ever loading the page.
No — it makes the request from Frost Rank's server, one hop at a time. A browser-based request can't be used here: it would auto-follow the entire chain silently and cross-origin restrictions would block reading the intermediate status codes anyway.
Yes, completely free with no signup. The URL you check is sent to Frost Rank's server to trace the chain — that's required for this tool to work — but it isn't stored or logged.
Traces the actual HTTP response at every hop server-side — not just the first and last URL — the same way a redirect audit is done when cleaning up chains left over from a real site migration.
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